A recent edi­to­r­i­al in the La Crosse Tribune urged Wisconsin leg­is­la­tors to main­tain the state’s ban on cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. The edi­to­r­i­al dis­cour­aged the state from rein­stat­ing cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment because it does not deter crime and is often unfair­ly applied, stat­ing that there is no need to bring back the death penal­ty because the state already has the sen­tence of life with­out parole. Legislators recent­ly vot­ed to hold a non-bind­ing ref­er­en­dum on restor­ing the death penal­ty, though the two ver­sions of the ref­er­en­dum bill have not been rec­on­ciled. The editorial stated:

Wisconsin used to have the death penal­ty. Before 1853. Before the botched hang­ing in 1851 of John McCaffary, who drowned his wife in a water trough.

I first wrote about the McCaffary hang­ing in 1991, when the Legislature was also con­sid­er­ing enact­ing the death penal­ty. It’s quite a story.

On a sum­mer day in 1851, Kenosha County offi­cials set up a wood­en gal­lows in an area large enough to accom­mo­date about 2,000 spec­ta­tors who showed up to watch the hanging.

A news­pa­per at that time said McCaffary’s body was ​“hoist­ed” into the air when he hit the end of the rope. He dan­gled there for about eight min­utes. His heart was still beat­ing. Doctors checked his pulse and then let him hang there for anoth­er 10 min­utes, in front of all the spec­ta­tors, before he finally died.

Public opin­ion changed pret­ty dra­mat­i­cal­ly about cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in Wisconsin after that. In 1853, the Legislature abol­ished it. Now many leg­is­la­tors want to bring it back.

Several weeks ago, the state Senate approved Senate Joint Resolution 5, call­ing for an advi­so­ry ref­er­en­dum in November on the issue of capital punishment.

Late Thursday, the Assembly vot­ed to put the death penal­ty ref­er­en­dum on the November bal­lot. It’s unclear whether that will hap­pen, how­ev­er, because the Assembly pro­pos­al was slight­ly dif­fer­ent than the Senate ver­sion, and anoth­er Senate vote would be required.

State Sen. Dan Kapanke, R‑La Crosse, who sup­ports both the ref­er­en­dum and the death penal­ty itself (for par­tic­u­lar­ly heinous crimes), said he expects the Senate to approve the issue lat­er when it comes back to deal with some administrative issues.

Legislators have been try­ing for years to bring back the death penal­ty for Wisconsin.

In 1991, they sought the death penal­ty for ser­i­al killers. The ques­tion leg­is­la­tors want to ask vot­ers this time is if they favor cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment for mur­ders where there is a DNA match.

Public opin­ion sur­veys often show that most cit­i­zens favor the death penal­ty, but that doesn’t mean it’s right. One the­o­ry is that the death penal­ty deters murder.

Does it?

Louisiana has the death penal­ty and it also has the high­est mur­der rate in the coun­try, with 12.7 mur­ders for every 100,000 peo­ple in 2004.

The mur­der rates in the death penal­ty states of Maryland, New Mexico and Mississippi are all above sev­en mur­ders for every 100,000 people.

In Wisconsin, by con­trast, the mur­der rate is 2.8. Iowa doesn’t have the death penal­ty, and its rate is 1.6. Texas, which exe­cutes the most peo­ple in the nation, has a 6.1 murder rate.

The New York Times, which has pub­lished edi­to­ri­als against cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment, did a study of homi­cide rates and death penal­ties in 2000, and con­clud­ed that mur­der rates rise and fall with lit­tle seem­ing rela­tion­ship to whether states execute murderers.

The Times quot­ed Milwaukee County District Attorney E. Michael McCann, who said the death penal­ty is applied unfair­ly to minorities.

“It is rare that a wealthy white man gets exe­cut­ed, if it hap­pens at all,” McCann said.

Officials who ​“have labored long in the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem know, sup­port­ed by a vari­ety of stud­ies and exten­sive per­son­al expe­ri­ence, that blacks get the harsh­er hand in crim­i­nal jus­tice and par­tic­u­lar­ly in cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment cas­es,” McCann wrote in 1996.

Public safe­ty can be served by keep­ing our most dan­ger­ous crim­i­nals in prison with­out parole for the rest of their lives.

That way we don’t need to restore the death penal­ty in Wisconsin.

(La Crosse Tribune, May 9, 2006, by Richard Mial, opin­ion page edi­tor). See Recent Legislative Developments, Editorials, Deterrence, Race, and Life Without Parole.
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